Thursday, March 18, 2010

Faazil-e-Hindi

A Child Prodigy and an intelligent youth

There is an intellectual among our scholars who led a life of anonymity. His name was Muhammad bin Hasan bin Muhammad Isfahani, and he was known by the appellation of Fazil-e-Hindi. If he is called as a great personality it is not beyond reality because he was indeed a great personality but what is actually needed is to bring out his personality from the shadows of anonymity. This is so because he was not an ordinary scholar; he has to his credit great services in the field of knowledge.

This great personality was born in 1062 A.H. in Isfahan and since he had traveled to India (Hindustan) during his childhood he began to be addressed as Fazil-e-Hindi.

His father Tajuddin Hasan bin Muhammad Isfahani was among the great scholars of his time. He is the writer of the commentary of Baher-e-Mawaj.

Fazil-e-Hindi is not known to the general readers, not even among the scholars. But the religious jurisprudents and the great Shia intellectuals know him well. Al-Hajj Mirza Husain Noori narrates from his teacher Shaykh Iraqain that the writer of Jawahir has expressed great trust in the book of Kashful Atham. Till the time he did not have this book in front of him he never wrote any portion of Jawahir and he used to say, “But for Fazil-e-Hindi the science of religious jurisprudence would have become extinct in Iran.”

The great jurisprudent Shaykh Asadullah Shustari in his first book Maqabis presents Fazil-e-Hindi in such a way as if he is arguing about Imamate and the rights of Ali (a.s.) with the Ahle Sunnat. Thus in one of his commentaries he writes, “Among his writings is the book, Al-Manahij-ul-Sawiya which is the commentary of Rawdatul Hayya. I have seen some of its volumes.”

His book Salat is authoritative, lucid and brimming with benefits and research. It was completed in 1088 A.H., which shows that the author was only twenty-five at that time. This young man also experienced those days when the Afghans created great mischief and Isfahan was broken away from Iran. Those days he spent a very difficult life of grief and calamities. Fazil-e-Hindi has written around eighty books and he expired in 1137 A.H. The most well known of his book is Kashful Atham, which is the commentary on Allamah Hilli’s Qawaid. In the introduction of this book he has repeated the words of Fakhrul Muhaqqiqin that why people are surprised if some are endowed with knowledge at a young age. Allah gives to whom He pleases.

He says, “I myself was not even thirteen when I had studied all the prevalent sciences. I was not even eleven when I had started writing and compiling books. When I was fifteen I wrote Munyatul Harees Dar Sharh Talkhis. I was only eighteen when I used to lecture on Taftazani…-